This week’s Twitter Mailbag is still feeling a little of the old Chris Weidman–Anderson Silva hangover, but we also power through with discussions on Cristiane Justino, T.J. Grant, wild conspiracy theories and the ethics of two disabled fighters having at each other in a cage.

Sound like fun? That’s because it is. So get in here and join the party, then direct a question of your to @BenFowlkesMMA.

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@benfowlkesMMA Who will TJ Grant have to fight if Pettis wins at 164 to regain the title shot (assuming BH gets a rematch)?

Why are we assuming that Benson Henderson will get an immediate rematch if he loses? Is it because Anderson Silva is getting one after dropping his title? Because, honestly, I don’t see why Henderson should get the Silva treatment just yet. It’s one thing if you’ve been the most dominant champ the sport has seen for the better part of the past seven years. In that case, yeah, you’ve earned at least one free rematch. But Henderson? He’s only been UFC lightweight champ for about a year and a half. In that time, he’s defended the belt three times, winning two of those via split decision. That does not a reign of terror make, I’m afraid. Not to mention, if Henderson loses at UFC 164 he’ll be 0-2 against Anthony Pettis. If he gets an immediate rematch after that, he basically becomes the kid who loses two coin flips in a row and then suggests, “OK, best out of five?”

Unless there is a major controversy involved – and I mean major, not just a close fight that Henderson loses – I say we move on and let T.J. Grant fight the winner. He’s earned it, and he shouldn’t have to give that up just because he got his brain rattled in jiu-jitsu class.

Same reasons most retired fighters start dreaming of a comeback eventually, I suppose. For one, there’s the money, which is always nice no matter how much you already have. For another, once you’ve heard them call your name in MGM Grand Garden Arena, it’s probably tough to find satisfaction at home on the couch. Next thing you know, you’re flexing in front of the mirror and thinking that maybe – just maybe – there’s still some fight left in these old pecs. Usually you’re wrong.

@benfowlkesMMA my question: is the fighter sponsor relationship a grayer area that we think? do fighters get stiffed a lot?

For those unaware, Doug is referring to a claim by the fighter known as “War Machine” (nee Jon Koppenhaver) that Canadian company Saint Apparel failed to pay him what it owed for a sponsorship deal following his most recent fight in Bellator. The whole sordid mess is on his Twitter, as are a bunch of tweets about his sex life that you probably don’t want to read at work (or just after eating). It’s not an unfamiliar story for fighters. They arrange a deal with some sponsor, sometimes in the loosest terms possible, then can’t collect after they’ve done their part. In War Machine’s situation, I’d be a little concerned by the tweet where he admits that he never signed a contract with this company, but that, too, is not all that uncommon in situations where fighters arrange the sponsorship deals on their own.

A while back, I did a story on the sponsorship situation in MMA. One of the things that surprised me the most was how many sponsors and fighter managers argued that the UFC’s “sponsor tax” was a good thing, since it mostly kept fly-by-night companies out of the picture. The companies that can afford to pay the hefty entrance fee the UFC charges, several people told me, are far more likely to have the cash on hand to pay their fighters. It’s the ones with nothing more than a couple t-shirts and a lot of empty promises that you really have to worry about. But even in the UFC, it’s not always so simple. Those fighters still get stiffed occasionally. UFC President Dana White even said recently that Brazilian company Pretorian was on the outs for owing the UFC “a lot of money.” So yeah, it happens.

In talking to managers and executives of companies in the MMA sphere alike, one thing they seem to agree on is that sponsorship money has largely dried up in the past few years. There are fewer companies in the space, and fighters are seeing less money from the ones that are still around. Some say the UFC fees have driven them out. Others say it’s not the return on investment they hoped for. A few blame the rash of startups that seemed to think all it would take was a skull logo on a UFC broadcast in order to get rich. Point is, when we talk about fighter pay these days, we should be careful about shrugging off those concerns by saying stuff like, “but that doesn’t even count sponsor money.” A lot of these guys are not making much from sponsors, especially if they’re stuck on a UFC prelim, as veteran fighter Mike Pierce was recently. Outside the UFC, some fighters are being promised decent sponsor deals only to end up with nothing but angry tweets. It’s an imperfect situation, and it’s changing all the time. Lately those changes haven’t benefitted the fighters very much.

I go back and forth on who’s to blame for the rash of conspiracy theories in MMA. Are MMA fans more likely to devise and perpetuate them, possibly because MMA fandom lives on the Internet and the Internet thrives on conspiracy theories? Or is it just that we don’t trust the UFC to tell us the truth when there’s money to be made by concealing it? Maybe it’s a little of both, but either way it bums me out both for what it says about our faith in the powers that be in this sport, and for what it says about us, the people who follow it. The Silva-Weidman fix talk is so absurd it makes my eyes ache just thinking about it. So is the Cat Zingano “fake” knee injury stuff. Come on – the UFC had Chael Sonnen cut promos for a title fight via Skype. You think the same people are going to the trouble of getting a fake hospital room for Zingano just so she can snap a Twitter picture that helps justify Miesha Tate‘s spot on a reality show?

The T.J. Grant conspiracy theory, I at least sort of get. He’s the only fighter I can recall who gave up a title shot by voluntarily reporting a concussion suffered in training. The fact that he said the concussion occurred during jiu-jitsu training, however, seems too weird to be made up. Even if it’s true, I’d be tempted to lie about it. It’s like that scene in “The Untouchables” where Kevin Costner tells Sean Connery that he’s carrying a gun because he’s a treasury officer, then acts surprised that Connery takes his word for it. “Who would claim to be that,” Connery says, “who was not?”

@benfowlkesMMA#tmb Does Silva have to absolutely destroy Weidman to avoid another immediate rematch?

I don’t think so. Because of the weirdness of the first fight, I think almost any finish by Silva would reinforce the belief that he only lost the first one because he got careless. And if he does regain the title, expect the UFC to push hard for one of those champion vs. champion superfights against either Georges St-Pierre or Jon Jones right away. If the Weidman fight taught us anything, it’s that you can’t keep putting off until tomorrow the big money fights you could make today.

@benfowlkesMMA I feel like Dana is forcing this rematch down our throats. Biggest match ever? Am I the only one not overly excited about it?

You just might be. I’m pretty excited about it, and it’s still months and months away. The Silva-Weidman rematch is an obvious choice, and a guaranteed money-maker, so I don’t blame the UFC one bit for signing that fight as soon as possible. Dana White’s claim that it will be the biggest fight in UFC history? Well, all I can say is there he goes again. Promoter gonna promote, son.

@benfowlkesMMA Is “Cyborg” destined to be the next Fedor for women, considered the best (by many) but never being UFC tested? #InvictaFC6

The problem for Cristiane Justino (she dropped the Santos, which I thought sounded way cooler, but fine) is not that we don’t know if she could compete in the UFC – it’s that we don’t know who she’d compete against. The UFC, as I’m sure you learned during your formal training, MMA Scholar, currently does not have a women’s 145-pound division. “Cyborg” has said she can’t make 135 pounds. She even has a doctor’s note, so you know it’s legit. From the look of it, she just barely made 145 pounds for her Invicta title fight with Marloes Coenen this past weekend. Maybe she’s just a Dolce Diet away from losing those extra 10 pounds, but maybe she’s not. Maybe this is as low as she can go without a tapeworm or an eating disorder.

As much as I’d love to see her fight Ronda Rousey – and as much as I think women’s MMA needs that fight the way it needed “Cyborg” vs. Gina Carano – I can’t say she’s obligated to do it. I certainly can’t write that in the TMB just one week after the most recent TMB, in which I admitted that extreme weight-cutting is a health hazard in this sport. My guess is that if nothing bad (or distracting) happens to either Rousey or Justino, they’ll eventually meet in the UFC, probably somewhere north of 140 pounds. Then again, this is MMA. Betting on big ifs and best-laid plans is rarely a good idea.

@benfowlkesMMA Should Rory embrace this psycho persona full on and go all WWE heel character with it? #TMB

Wait, I’m confused. Is that not what he’s doing already? When he talked recently about how he enjoyed stringing out his figh with B.J. Penn in order to “hurt him a little bit more,” you’re saying that wasn’t a calculated statement, but rather a true expression of his feelings? If so, I’m a little worried about the guy.

You know why you (and a lot of other MMA fans) don’t know who John Moraga is, despite the fact that he’ll be fighting for the UFC flyweight title in the main event of UFC on FOX 8? It’s probably because the UFC hasn’t given you the chance to get to know him. He’s had two fights in the UFC so far. Both were curtain-jerking prelim bouts, first of the night (and by “night” I mean afternoon). You could have had tickets to both the events he fought on, and you’d still be just a traffic jam or long beer line away from missing him entirely. Moraga might be the first person to get a UFC title shot without ever setting foot in the octagon after 5 p.m. Pacific Time. So yeah, that’s why you don’t know him. To answer your question though, Moraga is a two-time All-American wrestler at Arizona State who’s 13-1 as a pro, with his only loss coming via unanimous decision against John Dodson in 2010. He’s finished both his UFC fights so far, and he thinks flyweight champ Demetrious Johnson is boring. Anything else you need to know, you can probably learn by watching the fight on FOX next weekend.

Cracked open a cold beer, went over to my neighbor’s house for a barbecue, then waited for him to get cocky and complacent so I could lay him out with a mean left hook. If you can’t get away with that on Chris Weidman Day, when can you?

@benfowlkesMMA What do you make of two disabled MMA fighters facing off against each other? Is it wrong?

My first thought was yes, this is wrong. That could be because of the initial pitch email I saw that identified it both as “a fight not to be ignored- between to [sic] fighters that will be heard” and “a Mix Martial Arts battle that will break down barriers.” Maybe it’s my own prejudices seeping through, but if you don’t know what the sport is called, I generally question your motives. Still, after reading Steven Marrocco’s story on the planned fight between Garrett Holeve and David Steffan, I had to check myself. Why shouldn’t they fight if they want to? And if we try to stop them, will it be because we’re concerned about their welfare or ours?

As Garrett Holeve’s father Mitch pointed out in the story, if they were doing judo, there’d be no problem with them competing against each other in the Special Olympics. So what makes MMA suddenly off-limits to people with disabilities? I think the fear within the sometimes over-protective MMA community is that this will somehow reflect poorly on the sport. Maybe we’re worried that one of them will get hurt and the “human cockfighting” talk will start up again. I think that concern is unfounded, not to mention unfair to the fighters. I don’t see martial arts as something you should get to do only if you’re good at it. It’s a personal journey, and formal competition is often a vital part of it. I don’t see why Holeve and Steffan should be barred from that just because we find it distasteful or dangerous or unsavory. It’s not about us. It’s like fans of MMA used to say to its many, many detractors: If you don’t like it, don’t watch it.

Ben Fowlkes is MMAjunkie.com and USA TODAY’s MMA columnist. Follow him on Twitter at @BenFowlkesMMA. Twitter Mailbag appears every Thursday on MMAjunkie.com.

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